Given how much time we spend at work every week, it is natural to dream about our next vacation.  However, vacations can quickly turn into a work week experienced outside the office if not careful.  On the Getting Things Done blog, a person recently submitted the following question:

QUESTION: While on vacation, how do you juggle work and play? How much time should you allot each day of your vacation to reading business email, checking up on projects, etc.? What’s the best balance of work and play? When is the best time of the day to spend on work? What organizational tools should you always bring along on your vacation?

Read David Allen’s answer at: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/05/managing-work-on-a-vacation/

Are you new to productivity and efficiency work and need help getting started?  Or perhaps you have worked at this process in the past, but need new inspiration to keep going?  The Getting Things Done blog recently posted ten great tips for success with their methodology.

1. Start Small

There is a lot that makes up the Getting Things Done methodology. But that doesn’t mean you need to learn or master it all, all at once. Start with the master moves, like:

• Write down everything that grabs your attention when it shows up (supporting the idea that your mind is better used to have ideas, not hold them).
• Try the Two-Minute Rule, which would mean handling things that take less than two minutes to finish when they show up.
• Make sure you really understand the 5 steps to mastering workflow—those are the keys to how everything gets done in your life and are the backbone to GTD.

Read the other nine at: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2017/04/10-tips-for-success-with-gtd/

Many time management systems instruct people to set up priorities.  The catch is that our top priorities may take longer than the small spaces of time that open up to us during the day.  In his most recent blog post, David Allen discusses how to most effectively use the weird windows of opportunity we have every day to get things done.

“Most everyone I come across in my clients’ organizations are up to their eyeballs in work, and feel overwhelmed. Strategy and triage are indeed required to address that, but at least as important is the requirement for people to set up their lives to get a lot more efficient about getting a lot more done in a day.

To steal from a Motorola strategy from many years ago, we need to “mine the bandwidth.” They developed technology utilizing the more discreet areas “between the lines” in the radio frequencies already in place. Similarly we need to be ready for, and take advantage of, the weird uneven time and energy spaces we find ourselves in.”

Read the rest of David Allen’s post on the Getting Things Done web site.

In his seminars, David Allen often uses his experience with the martial arts as an analogy for GTD.  In his latest blog post, David develops on this theme to show how important it is to stay loose at work.

“A tense muscle is a slow one. This is a physiological and demonstrable fact in the martial arts. Could this be true in other aspects of our lives?

In karate, the power that can be generated by a punch is primarily due to speed, not muscle. It is the snap at the end of the whip. That is why petite people can learn to break boards and bricks with their hands—it’s not really about callouses, it’s more about the ability to generate that pop at the end of the thrust.

But a tense muscle is a slow one. So the high levels of training in the martial arts are about relaxation and balance, because that allows the flexibility and response-ability required to mobilize maximum resources at maximum speed for maximum results.”

Read the rest of his blog post at the Getting Things Done web site.

Have you ever noticed that somethings things don’t get done?  I know, this is a “Duh” insight.  The amount of things that don’t get done can seem larger than what actually gets done.  When you look closely, there is often a simple reason why some things that should get done don’t get done.  David Allen addresses this topic in a recent blog entry:

“I have noticed a tendency for people to spend a lot of time in high-energy meetings and discussions, and a high resistance at the end of those meetings and discussions to clarify—“Do I have the next action on this, or do you?” or “Whose is this now, to make happen?”

“This lack of declaring an owner for the action, outcome, or area of focus is why at home many couples and families have huge stacks of papers and “stuff” on the counter between the kitchen and the dining room, by the phone, and in the front hall, and why a lot of personal projects are “stuck.” No in-trays. No immediate physical, visible distinction as to who actually has the next action or decision about this bill, this brochure, this note from the teacher. Everybody sort of feels responsible for it, but no one really owns it. So it doesn’t happen.”

Read the rest of this blog entry at the Getting Things Done web site.

Moving into a 2017 is a good time to tidy up the old and prepare for the new.  One way to do this is through a commitment to the weekly review.  David Allen shares in a recent blog post the best time to do a weekly review:

The strength of GTD awareness and ability is knowing that the best time to do a GTD Weekly Review is when you least feel like doing it. The strange force that seems to make these simple but powerful habits so challenging is that we think we need to have the result of the behavior, before we can engage in the behavior.

We feel we need to be in control before we can plan, we need to be organized before we can get organized, and we need to know what’s going on before we can sit down to figure out what’s going on. Strange, aren’t we?

So make one of your new year’s resolutions a commitment to the weekly review.  You will soon wonder how you ever lived without it.  Experience a guided weekly review from a GTD Coach at: http://gettingthingsdone.com/2015/07/podcast-07-guided-gtd-weekly-review/

Read more of David Allen’s GTD Times blog at: http://gettingthingsdone.com/gtd-times/

It is a basic truth that in order to get things done, action of some kind is required.  Often times we fail to take action due to uncertainty about the exact nature of the action that is required.  However, it is not as complicated as it seems.  For anything that comes into your world, you have only four options on how to respond:

• Delete It – Get rid of the item as quickly as possible.
• Do It – Complete the action as soon as possible. The Two Minute Rule applies here.
• Delegate It – Send the action along to another person for action.  Delegation can be in any organizational direction – up, down, sideways, etc.
• Defer It – Store a reminder of the action on the appropriate list to do when time, space, and energy permit.

Run every actionable item through the GTD workflow diagram, found on page 37 of the new edition of Getting Things Done.  You will end up at one of the four “D”s when you do so.  Faithfulness to this process will help bring clarity to your work and increase productivity.  Have fun!